Ricky Stenhouse Jr. didn’t weather the bumpy surface of Kentucky Speedway so well in June, taking his lumps with a mediocre eighth-place finish. Since then, the bumps have been relatively few.
The defending NASCAR Nationwide Series champion returns to the 1.5-mile track in Sparta, Ky., with a substantial head of steam for Saturday’s Kentucky 300 (4 p.m. ET, ESPN), the 27th of 33 events this season.
In the last four races, Stenhouse has two wins and a pair of runner-up finishes. His triumph last Saturday at Chicagoland helped him reclaim the series points lead from Elliott Sadler, his chief rival in last year’s title run.
Four of Stenhouse’s five victories this season have come on 1.5-mile tracks, providing added optimism heading to the intermediate-size Kentucky layout.
“We’re coming off a big win so we will carry that momentum into this weekend,” Stenhouse said. “Earlier this year, we didn’t make the right adjustments but we’ve learned from that, so I feel we will be a strong contender this weekend. We’ve never gotten back-to-back wins so we are going to try to break that streak by getting our No. 6 Ford Ecoboost Mustang into Victory Lane.”
Sadler, who had held the Nationwide lead since early June, led Stenhouse by 21 points after his victory last month at Iowa Speedway, but a mild slump over the last six races has him facing a nine-point deficit heading to Kentucky. Richard Childress Racing teammate Austin Dillon, who scored a dominant breakthrough Nationwide win at Kentucky in June, sits third, 34 points off the lead.
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